was a Japanese film and kabuki actor. His birth name was , and his name was legally changed several times, first to , and later to , separate from his performing name.
Six months after his birth in Kyoto he became the adopted son of . He made his kabuki acting debut at the age of 15 under the name . In 1951 he was adopted by and was renamed as Ichikawa Raizō VIII. In 1954 he began a career as a film actor. He received breakout acclaim for his performance in Enjō and received several awards for the performance including the Blue Ribbon Award and the Kinema Junpo Award, both for the category of Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. Among his fans he was referred to lovingly as "Rai-sama." In June 1968 he was diagnosed with and underwent surgery for rectal cancer, but it metastasized to his liver and he died the following year.
Ichikawa Raizō appeared mostly in period dramas (jidaigeki). He is best known for the Sleepy Eyes of Death (Nemuri Kyoshirō) series, Ninja (Shinobi no Mono) series and Nakano Spy School (Rikugun Nakano Gakkō) series (based on the Nakano School). Raizō worked many times with director Kenji Misumi. Their collaborations include The Sword (Ken) (from a book by Yukio Mishima) and Destiny's Son (Kill!).
Other great works include An Actor's Revenge (Yukinojo henge). He was so admired for his gracefulness that in his lifetime he was called "the genius who thinks with his body."
Biography
Birth and adoption by Ichikawa Kudanji III
Ichikawa Raizō was born in the Nakagyō ward of Kyoto on August 29, 1931. At the time of his birth, he was named Akio Kamezaki. At six months of age he was adopted by Ichikawa Kudanji III, who renamed him Yoshio Takeuchi.
According to the film critic Rikiya Tayama, the details of his adoption are as follows: While Raizō's mother was pregnant, Raizō's father was transferred to Nara as an in the Imperial Japanese Army, leaving her behind at his family's home. She was persecuted by his family and attempted to reach out to him for help but was ignored. When she could no longer bear it she fled to her own family's home, where Raizō was born. The relationship between her and her husband having deteriorated, Raizo's mother intended to raise him on her own. At this point she received repeated petitions from her husband's brother-in-law, Ichikawa Kudanji III, to allow him to raise the child. She initially refused these offers, but ultimately relented, and Raizō was officially adopted by Kudanji at the age of six months. Raizō was not aware of his adoption until he was 16 years old, and he did not meet his mother in person until he was 30.
Kabuki Debut (1934 – May 1949) In 1934, about two years after his adoption by Ichikawa Kudanji III, Raizō moved from Kyoto to Osaka. Kudanji did not train him as a kabuki actor during his childhood, but in 1946, when he was in his third and final year at Osaka Prefectural Tennoji High School, Raizō elected to withdraw from school to pursue an acting career.
In November 1946, at the age of 15, Raizō made his kabuki debut at the Osaka Kabukiza theater under the name Ichikawa Enzō III (Kudanji had previously used the name Ichikawa Enzō II). His first role was the part of Lady Ohana (Musume Ohana) in the play Nakayamashichiri.
In May 1949, a little over two years after his first performance, Raizō formed a study group with two other young kabuki performers. These were Rishō Arashi (known later in his kabuki career as Arashi Kichisaburō VIII, and as Yatarō Kitagami in his acting career) and Nakamura Taro II. They called this group the , which can be translated as "exhaustive meeting," and together they focused diligently on training. However, there was one obstacle that this training could not overcome: Kudanji had been the son of a member of a minor politician in Kyoto rather than a kabuki actor, and had only been apprenticed (to an actor known as Ichikawa Sadanji II) because of Kudanji's own strong desire to enter the world of kabuki. Thus Kudanji was forever labeled as a montei agari – someone born and raised outside of the kabuki world and its "lineage" and later apprenticed into it – and doomed never to exceed a supporting role. That being the case, no matter how hard Raizō trained, he was unlikely to gain noteworthy roles as a kenmon performer as long as he remained the son of Kudanji.
Adoption by Ichikawa Jūkai III (June 1949 – June 1951)